Shortcake and Flowers
by treeflamingo
Summary: Tamaki is sent for flour, and returns with flower. Unabashed TamaHaru fluff.


Haruhi dipped a spoon into the cake batter and tasted it. Tamaki watched her with bated breath, his hands clasped right in front of his mouth.

"Blech, Tamaki-senpai, what did you do?!" His hands flew into a defensive gesture.

"I only did what you told me, my adorable Haruhi! I mixed in the milk," pointing to the measuring cup with milk residue on the bottom, "and the butter," pointing to the wax paper wrapper sitting on the top of the garbage, "and the sugar!" pointing to a blue glass jar full of a crystalline white powder.

"Tamaki-senpai."

"Yes, my cute Haruhi?"

"You got your sugar from the blue jar, did you not?"

"I did, my lovely Haruhi."

"And what jar did I _tell_ you to get the sugar from?"

"Aaaah…"

"I told you to get the sugar from the _green_ jar," gesturing (not without irritation) at a green glass jar still pushed up against the back of the counter.

Tamaki gulped. "Aaaah, but the colors are really so similar, and…"

"Senpai, the _green_ jar contains sugar. The _blue _jar contains kosher salt."

He gulped again. I droplet of sweat appeared on his forehead. "I see."

"You used a third of a cup of _salt_. In a shortcake recipe."

She stared at him for a few moments, and Tamaki felt like he was six years old again and being scolded by the maids for breaking a Louis XIV era vase while playing with his dog in the house after repeatedly being told not to.

She sighed loudly, turned on the hot water tap, and dumped the whole bowl of disgusting batter down the drain.

Tamaki's face went a little blue.

"Honestly, I don't know why I let you convince me to let you help. This cake needs to be made from scratch, and _delicious_, Tamaki-senpai, it needs to be _delicious _or I'll never hear the end of from the Neighborhood Society ladies, and it needs to be finished in," she glanced at the clock on the stove, "an hour. That includes baking time, cooling time, and time to layer the whipped cream and the strawberry glaze. Aaaah, there's no way I'll have it ready by 1:30! We used the last of the flour for that batter, so I'll have to go buy more flour, come back, remix the entire thing…"

"Ah, Haruhi, I'll go buy the flour and you can stay here and make the rest!"

She shot him a whithering glance that quite clearly said "And what should make me think you can buy flour without creating a fiasco of some kind?"

"I can do it, Haruhi!" he whined. "I'll run out right now and buy it! I will fly like an eagle to the commoner supermarket and –"

"No, don't go to the supermarket. If you go all the way there, it'll take too long. Go to the convenience store. It's only two blocks away. They'll have flour. I'll make the strawberry glaze and the whipped cream while you're gone, but it won't take long, so hurry!" She wiped her hands on a towel, pulled her wallet out of the purse that was sitting on the table, and handed Tamaki a 1,000 yen bill. "I'm expecting change!" she called as he dashed out of the apartment. She could hear him vowing ornate oaths to be speedy and efficient as he descended the stairs. She sighed.

_Really though, what was I expecting? I should have just told him, _No, Tamaki-senpai, I can't play with you because I have to attend a neighborhood meeting. I don't have time. _But no, I had to give in to his whining and nagging and silly selfish requests, and as usual I'm paying the price for it. Why can't I ever learn?_ She sighed again as she sliced the strawberries. _You'd think he'd have become a little more reasonable by now. He's certainly gotten more responsible when it comes to work. But if it's not something his business is riding on, he's just as ridiculous as he was back in high school. I suppose it's my own fault for expecting him to grow up, but_, and here a tiny smile teased at the edges of her mouth, _if he ever turned into a totally normal adult, life would probably get boring_.

The strawberry glaze was finished and in the refrigerator and the cream was almost perfectly whipped when Tamaki burst through the door carrying a bouquet of flowers. Carnations, to be precise. White and pink and red. A part of Haruhi's brain, the small part that wasn't processing high levels of shock and aggravation at that moment, registered that it was a lovely bouquet. His face was flushed. He had obviously been running. Haruhi blinked at him. Did he actually confuse flour with flowers? She knew he was an idiot, but this level of idiocy was just too much. She looked back at her whipped cream. There wasn't really a point in finishing anymore. There was simply not enough time to go out herself and buy baker's flour. She would just have to show up at the Neighborhood Society meeting without her promised strawberry-glazed shortcake. There would be months of disdainful glances and pitying words from the Neighborhood Society ladies, but she would just have to deal with it. Nothing to be done now, really.

Her thoughts froze when she felt Tamaki's hand on the back of her neck.

Of course, by now, she was pretty well used to his forehead kisses. Her heart still pounded a mile a minute every time, but she had developed the ability to maintain her composure and not blush madly. Which was a good thing, because he kissed her on the forehead with distressing frequency. He had given up calling her his daughter towards the end of her first year in the Host Club, right around the time Hikaru confessed to her, if she remembered correctly. He had replaced the flowery father-daughter speeches with flowery elaborations on her name. Usually something along the lines of "my more-adorable-than-a-fluffy-baby-chick Haruhi," or "my lovelier-than-a-summer-night-with-a-lilac-laden-breeze-and-a-myriad-stars-glittering-above Haruhi." And the grandiose gestures of fatherly affection he had replaced with kisses on the forehead. Fortunately, he had always had the discretion to only kiss her when nobody else was around, so there was never any scandal. But that didn't make it any easier for Haruhi to bear. It was bad enough that she had to fall in love with an idiot. The fact that her (for whatever reason) beloved idiot was so oblivious of her feelings that he kissed her forehead almost every time he saw her because, even now, he still thought of her as a more-or-less gender-neutral child – that fact still made her cry sometimes. She would have given up on love entirely by now, if she could just convince herself to stop being in love with him. But she couldn't, and now he would kiss her on the forehead and offer her the flowers, and her anger and irritation would fade away because she had never figured out a way resist that soft smile he always gave her after he kissed her, and she would forgive him and figure out something else and…

She felt a slight pressure at the base of her neck as he tilted her head back – he couldn't kiss her forehead if her forehead was facing down – and took a breath to steady her nerves.

He kissed her square on the mouth.

She hadn't been expecting that.

He pulled away after a few moments, and she stood perfectly still as he shuffled through cabinets, looking for a vase to put the flowers in.

"Of course I'm just kidding, my love. I got baker's flour, too. It's in a bag right outside the door. But aren't these lovely?" He slipped the flowers into a long-necked vase, filled it with water from the tap. "I saw them and thought, 'What pretty, kind-looking flowers.' Don't they look kind to you? 'If these flowers had a personality,' I thought to myself, 'They would be just like Haruhi.' So naturally I had to buy them." He stepped back outside to get the flour. Haruhi recovered herself enough to turn her head in his direction as he walked back in. He dropped the bag with the flour on the counter. "Now, how much flour do we need again?" He smiled at her. There it was, that smile. That soft, soft smile that made her chest ache.

"Two cups," she said, with just the teensiest glimmer of a tear peeking out the bottom of one eye, and a smile that could have turned the whole world pink.

He kissed her again before opening the bag of flour.


End file.
